Every once in a while, it’s important to step back and remind ourselves that this is not ‘a particularly lurid Tom Clancy novel.’

“Imagine someone had told you, a few years ago, that the FBI would soon be investigating a possible plot by a Republican presidential campaign to help Russia interfere in the US election — and that this interference had ultimately helped Donald J. Trump become president of the United States. You would have laughed in their face, or maybe accused them of confusing reality with a particularly lurid Tom Clancy novel.”

“But we learned on Monday morning that this is absolutely, 100 percent, without a doubt our reality. FBI Director James Comey confirmed it in testimony before the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, telling the assembled representatives that his counterintelligence investigators were looking into the Trump team’s links to Russia.”

Zack Beauchamp does a very good job of framing it here. Sometime during 2015, we seemed to walk through the Looking Glass. Now what would previously have seemed impossible, is not just possible, it’s our reality.

And now the latest bombshell from the CNN story:

“The FBI is now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings, according to those U.S. officials. The information is raising the suspicions of FBI counterintelligence investigators that the coordination may have taken place, though officials cautioned that the information was not conclusive and that the investigation is ongoing.”

“One law enforcement official said the information in hand suggests “people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared they were giving the thumbs up to release information when it was ready.” But other U.S. officials who spoke to CNN say it’s premature to draw that inference from the information gathered so far since it’s largely circumstantial.”

“The FBI cannot yet prove that collusion took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now a large focus of the investigation, the officials said.”

Well, there is one person we know for sure gave the thumbs up for releasing the info when it was ready-Roger Stone, who I’ve spoken about a lot here at Last Men and OverMen.

Stone evidently coordinated with both Assange and Guccifer 2.0. Are there other figures beyond Stone who did so? In a recent NY Times piece by Maggie Haberman eluded to the fact that Stone was far from the only Republican operative to have such communications.

“During the campaign, Guccifer 2.0 used social media to invite individual reporters and Republican operatives to request specific caches of documents.”

“Not long after, reports began circulating that Russia was behind the hacks, and that the materials were being spread as part of a campaign to undercut the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton. Still, that did not stop journalists and Republican operatives from dealing with Guccifer 2.0, and Mr. Stone was hardly alone in having contact with the hackers.”

He was-however-the one who seemed to have left the most fingerprints at least in the public record. Well played, Roger.

Indeed, you wonder if this new revelation by CNN was what Peter Schiff had in mind yesterday when he said that they now have more than just circumstantial evidence.

Zack Beauchamp-who has been very good on Russiagate-has a new Vox piece on this latest CNN bombshell:

“The notion that the Trump team may have coordinated its strategy with Russian intelligence has been alleged for a while now, but so far any actual evidence of this has been circumstantial at best. We already knew that members of Trump’s campaign had spoken to Russian intelligence officials, for example, but we didn’t know what they had talked about.”

“This is why CNN’s report seems so stunning: It is the first such report suggesting that the FBI may have credible information — say, an account of a meeting where collusion was discussed, to give one wholly hypothetical example — of a possible Trump campaign-Russia plot against Hillary Clinton.”

“The information that we’re getting is third-hand at best: CNN’s summary of unnamed US intelligence officials’ summary of evidence they had acquired from unnamed sources. We don’t know nearly enough to evaluate the quality of CNN’s sources or the quality of the intelligence they’re basing their conclusions on.”

“But CNN’s report does seem to dovetail with comments made earlier in the day by Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, that the evidence of Trump-Russia collusion had become more direct than was publicly known.”

“I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now,” Schiff said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball.

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Mike Sax

Congressional Candidate

I'm Mike Sax and I'm a first time Congressional candidate for the NY 2nd Congressional District. Like many Americans after the November 8, 2016-a day that truly will live in infamy-I have decided to put my hat into the ring for the first time.